Nifty News

Faithful Followers

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Now that summer has finally hit in Chicago, my kids have been living outside from the moment they get home from school until the moment I force them, kicking and screaming call them inside to get ready for bed. They spend every spare second playing in the yard, running around like wild dogs, and making up games. Their favorite game to play is called "let's disassemble the swingset and prop the slide up against the house, then hook the garden hose up so it sprays all over the slide and the kitchen windows, then we'll try to go down this wet and very precariously-placed slide until we break our arms, or until mom loses it and yells at us to stop, whichever comes first".

That fun game is usually followed by the kids walking, dripping wet, into the house and tracking mud all over my floors just so they can get something really important like a plastic dinosaur they can throw down the slide repeatedly until they get bored and they whip it on the roof of the house.

Another fun game they play entails throwing a basketball as hard as they can at each other. This is followed by two or more kids running into the house and crying about their injuries. Finally, the famous who started it conversation begins.

They also play a great game wherein the dump out every bin of toys, skates, baseballs, mitts, and water guns onto the garage floor. The toys must be left there for at least 72 hours.

One of my favorite games they play is Extreme Catch. One person stands in the front of the house and one stands in the back. They lob a baseball back and forth over the roof of the house to each other. Fun.

Another game uses a bag of pretzels, some dishes from the house, a piece of leftover pizza, a doll, a toy camera, the case from a Barbie DVD, and some dental floss. I'm not really sure what they do with these items and how they use them in the game, but I'm sure that every one of these things is an important component of the game. I think the object is to make sure all the items end up in the sandbox.

I can't wait until school's out so they can stay outside making up games ALL. DAY. LONG.

23 comments:

Reminds me of the time my sisters & I decided to have a water fight... in the house... while Mom was @ work... Unfortunately, Grandpa did a surprise visit & we got in BIG trouble! That was the first (and last) time Grandpa ever yelled @ us!

These games sound familar, a lot of that goes on at my house. And they also like to play this game where they beat each other with baseball bats. They said they're playing swords, but when I watched my 4 year old explaining in great detail the way you're "supposed" to stab someone to my 2 year old, I decided the bats had to go.

Extreme catch reminds me of a game my husband and his brothers played. Their's was one of the first houses built in a new subdivision, so there were always giant piles of dirt around as other houses went up. They would stand on opposite sides of the dirt hill and whip rocks at each other. My husband still remembers having to pay for his brother's broken glasses out of his lawn mowing money.

Those totally sound like the games that my kids have been playing with the neighbor kids! It's hard for me to not stress about the the stuff and the mess and the potential for injury and just let them have fun. And they have been having a lot of fun lately!

We play extreme catch at work ALL THE TIME!! A teacher on one side kicks the ball HARD over the roof and the kids on the other side all laugh and giggle when it lands, Then we repete the same steps over and over till the kids get bored with it or untill we kick the ball so hard they skip over the daycare fences.

"I can't wait until school's out so they can stay outside making up games ALL. DAY. LONG."

We (your readers) will have to remind you that you said that at the end of the summer when you begin to rip your hair out and say you cant wait for them to go back to school. Every parent says they cant wait until their kids are out of school for the summer and things slow down. And by the end of summer, every parent is counting down the days until school starts up again and things quiet down around the house and they can get something done.

Sometimes when my children are in collusion on games like this I long for the hour before when they were yelling at each other. Just because I want them to get along doesn't mean I want them to conspire against me.

When I was a kid a century or two ago we played Annie-Over. It's the same as extreme catch, except you had to yell "Anni Anni Over" to let the kid on the other side of the house know the ball was coming.

Unfortunately, I started the "Extreme Catch" game here at my house a few years ago- with a foam ball, that of course, we no longer have. Now I have my 7 yr old son, and his neighbor "accomplice" trying to play that game with a regular soccer ball. Except they're not that good at it- and I'll be going about my business in the house and start to hear thuds. I think since I've yelled enough about they'll quit (or so I hope!). So far so good this week! However, we have a small foam blue football lodged in the gutter right above the front door. Of course, no one knows who did it.

Once a year, my husband and his friends get together for "Boozer Olympics." They basically, drink beer all day and do the kind of things your kids do. It's ridiculous. They even have "awards." Some of the other wives have dubbed it "loser Olympics."

What is it with kids and wanting to throw things over the roof!? Summer just started and we already have one frisbee and one nerf ball/frisbee thing stuck up there! It also sounds great inside as the ball rolls down the roof, thump-thump-thump-thump! Have a GREAT summer Dawn!